Friday, March 6

A male Carolina Wren has a repertoire of about 30 songs. It sings one song a number of times before switching to another, known as eventual variety. (May, PA)

(June, PA)

The song can be confused with that of Kentucky Warbler. The Kentucky usually only sings every 15 seconds or so (except at dawn) and each male has only one song (May, NJ)

Carolina Wren pair duet, with a female chattering over the male's song. The recording begins with scolding by the female. (Jan, PA)

Odd song variants:(May, NJ)

(Mar, PA)

In this example a paired male is singing with (mostly) immediate variety, and interspersing squeaky notes between the phrases (7.32am, Feb, PA).

House Wrens also each have a repertoire of about 30 songs.(5.45am, June, PA)

Most Winter Wrens in the eastern United States sing only two different songs, albeit amazingly long and complicated vocalizations (Western birds, now split and called the Pacific Wren, have a larger repertoire).(July, ME)

Time scale reduced on these three sonagrams.phrases 1,2 and 3

phrases 4,5 and 7 are a short version of the next song

phrases 6,8,9 and 10

The eastern Marsh Wren has a repertoire of 40-50 songs. Western Marsh Wrens have a much larger repertoire and may be a different species - see Kroodsma. Consecutive songs are all different, known as immediate variety.(May, NJ)

(Aug, NJ)

Sedge Wrens have a huge song repertoire, with each male having 200-300 versions, mostly subtle differences in the chatter. What is really interesting about the North American population is that the songs are improvised, not learned.(June, ND)

Peterson Field Guide to Bird Sounds of Eastern North America. Nathan Pieplow, 2017. Highly recommended, includes almost all known vocalizations of eastern US birds, with spectrograms and detailed analysis. Excellent!

Stokes Field Guide to Bird Song, Eastern Region, by Lang Elliot. 3 CDs. Of commercial recordings, this has the most comprehensive collection of songs and calls.

The Birds of North America Online (BNA). Comprehensive information on all aspects of life history, including audio and video. By subscription.

The Singing Life of Birds. Donald Kroodsma, Houghton Mifflin, 2005. Terrific book (plus CD), a must read.

The Songs of Wildbirds. Lang Elliott., Houghton Mifflin, 2005. Excellent photos with high quality recordings including some rare ones such as the flight song of the Western Meadowlark.

The Sound Approach to Birding. A guide to understanding bird sound. A. van de Berg, M Constantine, M. Robb. Superb discussion of bird calls and song with 2 CDs.